Hungry for more

Sunday

While worst-case scenarios did not materialize this waterfowl season, summer floods clearly took a toll on fall duck hunting along the Illinois River.

Heavy rains in late August and the resulting rise in the Illinois River wiped out most of the duck food in the valley, whether planted corn fields or more natural moist-soil vegetation. The results were obvious during the recently completed Central Zone duck season.

If you had duck food, you had ducks. If not, you suffered through a long 60 days in the marsh. Even sites with food learned how quickly a few thousand ducks can eat.

'We had corn in the West Point area, and we started out pretty well there until they fed it out,' said Ed Oest, site manager at Anderson Lake. 'Once they did, things slowed down. There wasn't enough corn to survive the whole season.'

The same was true at The Nature Conservancy's Emiquon Preserve, which started the season with lush stands of aquatic vegetation and lush numbers of ducks and coots. Midway through the season, duck counts dropped.

Why? Illinois Natural History Survey studies showed nearly all the tasty submergent vegetation was gone, according to researcher Aaron Yetter. 'The ducks ate it out and that was it,' Yetter said.

One area with enough food to last all season was the cluster of clubs between Spring Bay and Lacon that includes Randy Root's Mallard Farms. Many refuges there are protected behind levees, and mallards are still eating that corn.

While club members benefited from their levees, so did public hunters at the nearby Woodford Conservation Area. Woodford racked up 4,036 ducks and averaged an area-best 1.6 ducks per hunter thanks to its proximity and its well-used refuge.

Next best among local public areas was the 1.56 dph average at Spring Lake Bottoms, where moist-soil plants flourished behind the protection of a massive river levee. The food at Spring Lake Bottoms also helped Spring Lake, where hunters shot 741 ducks — that site's best season since 1999.

Across the river, Banner Marsh held more ducks than usual and posted its best harvest since 2001. Yes, refuges at Banner are also protected by a massive river levee.

But most other sites were below average, though slightly ahead of dire expectations. A lack of wood ducks hurt Sanganois, while a lack of food crippled the normally productive Rice Lake walk-in areas.

Further proof of the importance of food can be seen in above-average duck counts along the Mississippi River, which fared better this summer thanks to lower water levels and more protective levees along several key waterfowl refuges.

'They've got a lot of corn behind (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) levees that's protected, and most of what we've got is out in the open here,' Sanganois manager Doug Jallas said.

But Yetter, who flies the Natural History Survey's weekly duck census, does not believe the migration pattern toward the Mississippi will be permanent.

'They had food and we didn't, so they had ducks and we didn't,' he said. 'Most of that I attribute to the September flood that completely wiped us out.'

Moral of the story? Duck hunters have another task in 2008. In addition to crossing your fingers heading into next summer's duck-blind drawings, you've got to pray for no heavy downpours in August and September.